The public municipal management faces numerous challenges to modernize its administrative structures and decision-making processes in order to promote innovative changes that dialogue with the real needs of the population.

Since 2013, with the purpose of intensifying actions of social participation, transparency, integrity and technological innovation, the Municipality of São Paulo started the municipalization process of the open government agenda.

The Municipality of São Paulo concentrated efforts on structuring initiatives that could give concreteness to the open government agenda in local governments, and thus establish clear and direct connection between the concepts that shape this international agenda to the local needs of citizens of a global city as Sao Paulo. In this way, we have prepared, implemented, monitored and evaluated a set of actions and programs directly linked to each of the four axes of the Open Government.

As a milestone of this process, the Open São Paulo Initiative (São Paulo Aberta) was established by the Decree No. 54794 of January 28th, 2014. For its internal articulation, the Interdepartmental Committee on Open Government of the City of São Paulo (CIGA-SP). The Open São Paulo Initiative had essential role in the consolidation of the many initiatives undertaken by the various secretariats and agencies of the City of São Paulo in the areas of social participation, transparency, technological innovation and public integrity. With the creation of the Open São Paulo Initiative and CIGA-SP, São Paulo became the first city in Brazil to have within its administrative structure a body responsible for articulating the actions of open government and staff entirely dedicated to the development and strengthening of these actions.

Social participation in the city gained new momentum with the creation of the Open São Paulo Portal (www.saopauloaberta.prefeitura.sp.gov.br). We increased the access of citizens in the decision-making process of the municipality with the creation of this digital platform that allows them to contribute in various ways to the life of their community. Since 2015, we are conducting virtual public consultations on legal frameworks that are modernizing the city's legislation on issues ranging from education to human rights. We highlight the public consultation process for the Municipal Policy of Social Participation, which will enable the city to be included in the National Participation System. By the end of 2015, there were 21 public consultations held by Open São Paulo, which involved the direct participation of approximately 1,000 residents.

Technological innovation in São Paulo is fostered via collaborative laboratories, such as MobiLab - Laboratory of Urban Mobility and Open Protocols, an initiative of the Municipal Secretariat of Transportation, and LabProdam - Technological Innovation Laboratory of Sao Paulo, articulated by the Open São Paulo Initiative. Both laboratories have as a general guideline the use and development of free software tools, with the common goal of promoting the creation of technological tools, as well as their use by public officials and inhabitants of São Paulo, in order to undertake improvements in the dynamic of the city. An example of a tool designed by LabProdam is the "Cyclists Counter', still at an experimental stage, which measures the use of cycle paths from capturing images. An important development in the context of transparency was the creation of the Municipal Comptroller General (CGM), internal control body of the city, which acts in the integrity area (active and passive transparency, social control, ethics and strengthening management), internal affairs, audit and defense of the public service user. Due to the work of CGM, São Paulo occupied the first position among the cities of Brazil that have provided all public procurement contracts, strengthening the idea of an “open buying process” and open information on the real estate data. In 2015, Sao Paulo was the best-evaluated Brazilian capital in the ‘Brazil Transparent Scale’ of the Federal Comptroller General - which assesses compliance with the access to Information Act - with full marks in transparency.

With regard to ethics and anti-corruption, we can highlight the participatory preparation of the Functional Code of Conduct for civil servants, the Municipal Catalog Database, and the internal audit process. Another way to strengthen the culture of integrity in the city was the opening of channels of dialogue and collaboration in the digital environment, where managers and public officials are accountable on the results of their work in the public administration. The Open Office (Gabinete Aberto: http://saopauloaberta.prefeitura.sp.gov.br/index.php/gabinete-aberto/), a weekly and live webcast, organized by the Open São Paulo Initiative, transmitted through the portal of the Open São Paulo Initiative and the portal of ‘Rede São Paulo Saudável’, opened online interface between government and citizens, allowing interaction between them.

For the municipalization of the open government agenda could positively impact the local reality, the city has developed training activities with public and private universities and the Government Agent Program - which was object of study by GovLab (NYU ). The Government Agent Program offers scholarships to 48 agents, conduct 1200 training activities in open government, in order to enable up to 25 thousand people for the use of participation and transparency tools.

For the establishment and enforcement of these actions, the City of São Paulo has the important support of civil society organizations, whose commitment to the citizens make the Open São Paulo initiative a very innovative and ambitious program, with strong feasibility of being spread in the city since it is rooted in the progressive use of technological tools developed to meet the needs of the city and its inhabitants.

With approximately 12 million inhabitants, the actions undertaken in the city of São Paulo have great impact nationally – among other local governments – and internationally. As a repercussion of the construction of this municipal initiative of open government, it is worth noting that other local governments request support in the establishment of such actions, as the one given to the creation of the Coordination of Open Government in the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro. Easy access to São Paulo, its high capillarity and power to bring together are features that will help the networking activities with other governments, either by its history of collaboration or by the national and international projection of the city.

It is very important the empowerment of different levels of government, where citizens usually have more direct access to services and information. Thus, in addition to the support we receive from the federal government and the Federal Comptroller General (member of OGP), a direct support to local governments will be very rewarding in the establishment of a culture of open government at the local level process. Given the importance of the work of São Paulo and the interest in order to develop and expand its open government program, we submit our application to the OGP Subnational Government Pilot Program in the Pioneers’ Tier.

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